'BlackBerry Tablet' Looms From Licensed Device Maker, Says CEO
Having landed three deals licensing the BlackBerry brand and intellectual property to smartphones shipped by other companies (see 1612200062), BlackBerry is “expanding to the next phase of our licensing program” that will “focus on a broader set of end points,”…
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CEO John Chen said on a Friday earnings call. “What this might mean -- and I make no promise -- is that you may soon see a BlackBerry tablet.” Before the tablet can progress to the next stage of commercial reality, "we have to QA it, we have to do a lot of things with it, so it’s not a 100 percent-committed thing," Chen said of the quality assurance process. "It’s going to come from our partners.” not from BlackBerry itself, he said. He didn't identify the licensee that’s weighing the possible tablet introduction. With more than “100 million lines of software code in some of today’s vehicles, there’s a growing risk of security breaches and failures,” Chen said of connected cars.